


End

by krasati



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Sad with a Happy Ending, also bruce wayne kills the joker cos dc is a coward, but not really, like it would make sense for the joker to die really, pls see the warnings for mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 15:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12751332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krasati/pseuds/krasati
Summary: Where Bruce Wayne wasn’t a ponce, killed the Joker, and maybe all the bad in his world would end with that.





	End

**Author's Note:**

> Where DC is a coward and maybe this, was what it could have been.

The idea started to bloom when Diana kicked down the locked door of his study and said quietly, “I can do it for you, if you like.”

Bruce didn’t raise his head to look at her - because he looked godawful and he didn’t want anyone to see what a complete mess he was in right now - but he allowed her to hold his bruised hand across the desk, until the clock’s minute hand hit twelve twice and she let go with a whisper.

It had been a week and he didn’t know what people were apologising for.

Perhaps they were voicing what he wished he could have said before it was too late. In a way.

Like the way Diana voiced out what he wanted. It’s not fair to say she planted the idea, when it had always been deep in his psyche, brewing like a storm - in his head, in his heart, and in his fantasies, where manic laughter faltered and died along with the pain that racked him since he held the warm corpse of his -

No.

Maybe, it had always been in him, since he was eight and his parents died, because that’s why he became Batman, because the suit kept that monster within him from raging.

Or maybe it was the fact that a mad man tortured and murdered his child and _Jason died slowly_ and he was still on the loose and -

Bruce stilled. Batman had work to do, and Bruce Wayne was incapacitated. The suit in more than one way, kept him together. He needed the focus, especially now. Jason wouldn’t want his murderer free to roam this Earth, ruining lives in his mad crusade.

He took the last swig of the whiskey and began to think.

————

“Look Bruce, I know what Diana said but there’s gotta be -“

“Do you have anything you need, _Clark_?” Batman snapped.

The bastard should have known to use codenames in the field, even if they were on a rooftop, far away from most prying ears. But Batman had been spying on a gang who was the last known link to the Joker and for fuck’s sake if Superman did not leave -

He breathed deep, a 19-count cycle, and blinked the red away.

“Br- Batman,” Superman tried again.

Batman growled, “No metas in Gotham,” 

Superman sighed, “Tell me you aren’t going to cross the line,”

_He fucking killed my son._

Well, fuck the breathing manoeuvres - Batman was fear, one that anchored Gotham like a wall of shadow even in the night, one that was free from any human weakness that plagued Bruce Wayne, one that had to be greater than the strongest of men.

“I’m bringing him down,” Batman said matter-of-factly.

“Ok,” Superman let go of the breath he had been holding in.

Batman bellowed, “Get out.”

“Pick up your phone, Bruce,” Superman chided, ignoring Batman’s glare as he flew into the sky.

————

 

“What are you planning, Master Bruce?” Alfred asked. The first time Bruce heard his voice since the screaming match two nights ago. Well, it was mostly him screaming, while Alfred stood still with tired eyes. Alfred had walked away first.

Alfred should quit, should have quit, before he got dragged into the madness Bruce created himself. And now, Bruce killed his own child.

Maybe after this mess Alfred would leave him forever, safe and happy and Bruce wouldn’t be there to drag him down. If Alfred didn’t resign Bruce should fire him, cut him away for his own good.

“Don’t ask something you don’t want to know Alfred,”

“Hm,” A plate of cookies appeared beside him. Bruce stopped typing on the Batmonitor.

“Alfred, about what happened-“

“- I just want to say Master Bruce, whatever you are intending to do, whatever has happened, I’m not leaving, not now.”

Bruce never knew what to say to Alfred sometimes. When Dick and Jason were in the manor he could sit in their conversations. But Dick and Bruce had burned most of their bridges - which now in hindsight, thank god - and Jason was -

Bruce picked up a cookie. It was white chocolate raspberry. Jason baked this once for his class, placed a few in a green gift pack for Bruce to bring to Wayne Enterprises. He bit into the cookie, felt it break against his teeth. He could feel Alfred’s presence behind, watching the monitors closely.

Alfred knew.

For some reason the next breath he took and let go of had his shoulders relaxing for the first time in a long while.

————

 

The phone call was from Dick. Bruce had avoided him ever since the whole meltdown in the Batcave a few days after Jason’s funeral. He still regretted the words that left his mouth.

Dick had been avoiding him too, for good reasons.

When the phone rang for the second time Bruce answered it.

“Do you need help?” Dick asked.

Bruce frowned. “What do you mean?”  _Alfred? Or Clark?_

“People are saying you‘ve been working yourself thin,” Dick said casually.

”I’ve not.” Which is true, because he stopped the booze once his mission started. He worked out, ate properly under Alfred’s careful watch. Though sometimes, when he got reminded of Jason - in the books he still left lying around, the birds outside flying about, Jason’s room, the fucking newspaper headlines - then everything he ate found itself in the toilet.

“You are catching _him_ right?” Dick pressed on.

“Yes,” Bruce said, wary.

“I’ll help,”

“There’s no need-“

Dick interjected tersely, “I’ll be there.” The phone call ended. Bruce couldn’t figure out what Dick knew. The boy he raised had grown up, and god was he proud.

————

 

There was an entire helicopter chase which ended with the Joker and Batman falling into the ravine. Nightwing was occupied with the rest of the gang members back at the warehouse. The comms was silent - Batman had switched his off.

“Well Bats! Howdya do?” The Joker had a crowbar swinging in his hands.

“Jason.”

Batman leapt.

And Batman - no, _Bruce_ thought, remembered, why he started this vigilante mess in the first place. Because, as his fist connected with a loud crunch in the Joker’s collarbone, it could sometimes be goddamn satisfying.

“Y’ kno’,” the Joker rasped, through broken teeth and bones and his bleeding nose and his bleeding smirk, “I‘ve gav’ a presen’!”

Bruce broke a few more of his ribs.

“A flatten’, fried robin!” The Joker cackled, and Bruce drove the sharp edge of gauntlet into his face.

Something cracked under his fist, and the laughter faded into a garbled, gasping scream.

“Shut up,” Bruce hissed, as he landed another blow.

“Shut.” Punch. “Up.” Punch.

“You aren’t really here, are you?” The Joker giggled, and Bruce couldn’t understand how he was forming full sentences, unless Bruce was hallucinating right now, “You are so closed to doing it! Ah I wish I can see your face when you realised-“ The next punch landed with a wet thud.

The Joker leaned closed right then, blood spitting as he grinned, “That I’ve won,”

“Fair enough,” Bruce shrugged. Bruce didn’t care, really, because all he could think of was Jason in the manor, in the Batcave training, as Robin; he couldn’t help it - Jason’s laughter was the only clear thing in the raging red of his mind right now - and so Bruce added, “Batman dies tonight.”

The Joker’s eyes widened, “Wha-“

Then Bruce snapped his neck.

————-

 

It’s kind of morbid, yet theatrically fitting, to have his child’s murderer frothing in the waters in front of him. Bruce knelt for minutes and finally -

Superman landed behind him.

“You planned this,”

Not exactly. He didn’t know what was actually going to happen.

“You had Diana distract me with a mission in space with the Justice League. She handed me the papers. Your instructions,”

But. He knew _this_ might happen. Even when Nightwing, Alfred, even Diana wished it wouldn’t come to this.

Bruce removed the cowl and dropped it into the water.

“Yes,” Bruce replied pleasantly, ”and you know what you have to do.”

Clark floated in front of him.

“You are trying to punish yourself,” Clark realised.

Bruce cocked his head.

Clark took a breath, “I’m not going to arrest you. I’m not going to expose you as Batman.”

At Bruce’s raised eyebrow, Clark admitted, “Diana and I disagreed about-“ he paused, side-eyeing the dead body next to him, “-but, I don’t think you deserve what you think you do. And Jason won’t think so either,”

Bruce snarled then, leaping to a crouch with his eyes wild, “Don’t you dare use Jason -“

“No, you need to listen-“ and Bruce socked him in the face, even if it was his bones that were going to break. Clark recovered fast, gripping onto both of his wrists.

”Bruce,” Clark said sadly, “Jason’s gone. And prison, or whatever you were thinking of, won’t change a thing,”

“No,”

Clark let go of his wrists to place his hands on his shoulders.

“Bruce. Look at me. Whatever that happened, it’s not your fault. It was the fault of a madman. And even he’s gone,”

Bruce looked away. Clark grasped his face instead.

“ _Bruce_.”

Bruce stiffened, but forced himself to look at Clark.

“Now you need to heal. And we will all be there for you.”

———

 

Bruce was resting in bed when the phone rang.

Unknown number. He wondered if he should pick it up, since it had only been Bruce Wayne for the past two and a half years. Batman’s brand of Vigilante Business and Justice was now helmed by Dick and Tim. Bruce had been in the sidelines, as a Bat-consultant, or whatever ridiculous name Dick had called him.

Instead of hanging up, the phone reached a voicemail.

“Beloved,” Talia said pointedly, “Pick up the phone. This is serious.”

Bruce closed his eyes.

He dialled her number.

—————

 

Apparently Bruce drove so much like a mad man that Talia intervened. A driver was hired, and now Bruce had the freedom to drum his fingers on the seats.

 _She is lying. You are an idiot._ He brought along a few trackers and a cryptic message for Dick to intervene if necessary. Yet even he had to admit he was particularly vulnerable now - notwithstanding the al Ghuls and the League of Assassins, his mind was in a complete disarray and it had been awhile since he moved in a complete blur with no idea what he was doing.

“Madame said you know the codes?” The driver asked, jolting him out of his thoughts. They had arrived to an unusually large safehouse by the lake. Bruce slipped a five hundred dollar note into the driver’s hand and stepped out.

He keyed in the security code and the gate opened. Talia nodded her greeting.

“Where is he?” Bruce demanded.

She held a palm out, “Soon,” 

“I need to see him,” Bruce insisted.

“I know,” Talia soothed, “We need to speak first,”

Rage ignited within him. “Oh? So there is something you do want,” he said coldly.

“Nothing,” Talia replied, “But he is fragile. And you need to calm down.”

So Bruce did the breathing manoeuvres that his teachers and his therapist drilled into him.

Bruce straightened his back, “I’m ready.”

Talia briefed him promptly, and Bruce suspected there was more information hidden, but right now, all he wanted more than anything, was concrete proof.

“Send me the files, every information you have,” he commanded.

Talia bristled, “This is sensitive information,”

Bruce stared. She visibly contemplated her options, before turning to the hallway. Bruce followed her closely as she led the way.

“Fair enough,” Talia finally acquiesced, leading him to a room, “now go in.”

Bruce turned the knob and entered.

The room was furnished to the high ends, warm and spacious, with a library of books, fur carpets and rugs, and a bed Bruce was certain had silk linens and blankets.

On the other side of the room there was a fireplace with a sectional couch and a coffee table facing it. Someone sat hunched on the floor against the couch, and from where Bruce was standing he could see only the back of the head and tensed shoulders. Blood pulsed and soared through his veins as Bruce walked over to kneel into the soft rug.

“Hello,” Bruce said gently, holding his breath.

Jason raised his head. There was a streak of white in the front of his hair now. He was bigger than Bruce last remembered. His eyes were teary and Lazarus green. Bruce remembered the first time they met and Jason swung a tire iron at Batman; thought back to the first time Jason and Bruce Wayne met and Jason had stared at him with wide, similarly teary eyes before he burst out in laughter.

“Hi,” Jason said, almost shy, and Bruce leaned forward to wrap him in his arms.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Same thing, nasty shippers please leave....
> 
> If I wrote this out of spite - like, yea it’s also the fault of the writers, but the (many) instances post-crisis Bruce writing Jason off before and after his resurrection had me so &@#??*!! 
> 
> Also if yall have any warnings you would want to be tagged for this work just say the word!


End file.
